Our Primary Picks to Replace David Wu

Our endorsements in Oregon's 1st Congressional District special election.

The leading Democrats are Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian,
State Sen. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Beaverton), and State Rep. Brad Witt
(D-Clatskanie). There are five other candidates in the Democratic
primary race, but none of them is running a substantial campaign.

Avakian, 50, grew up
in Washington County, graduated from Aloha High School and wrestled at
Oregon State University. After graduating from Lewis & Clark Law
School, Avakian as a lawyer primarily represented injured or aggrieved
workers. (His agency, the Bureau of Labor and Industries, does much the
same on a statewide level.) He lost a race for the Legislature in 1998
but won a House seat four years later.

FROM TOP: Jim Greenfield (R), Brad Avakian (D), Brad Witt (D)

Photos by Steel Brooks

In
the past, Avakian has looked at running for attorney general and
governor. In 2008, he briefly ran for secretary of state but dropped out
when the labor commissioner’s job came open and then-Gov. Ted
Kulongoski named him to the post. And he was the first candidate to jump
into this congressional race, doing so before Wu resigned.

As we’ve previously reported (“Not Paying His Dues,” WW,
Sept. 14, 2011), Avakian has had serious money problems. He failed to
pay his federal and property taxes, and was sued by creditors in small
claims court four times. While a legislator, he sent an email to
lobbyists asking for help in finding a private-sector job. And 21 years
after graduating from law school, he still hasn’t paid back his student
loans.

Among
our many concerns about Avakian is his lack of consistency. Avakian
champions populist values, but in 2005, in one of the highest-profile
votes of his six-year legislative career, he was one of only two
Democrats in the Legislature to vote against a bill that would have
required PGE and PacifiCorp to stop pocketing hundreds of millions of
dollars they add to ratepayers’ bills supposedly to cover the utilities’
income taxes—taxes they legally avoided paying. He can offer no
reasonable explanation for this vote.

More
recently, Avakian said he opposes the trade agreements recently passed
by Congress that open up trade with South Korea, Panama and Colombia.
He’s said so in front of labor unions and to us during our endorsement
interview.

But he gave a
different view to Nike, a supporter of the trade agreements. “When Brad
Avakian met with us to ask for Nike’s support for his campaign, he did
not tell us that he opposed the free-trade agreements,” Nike spokeswoman
Erin Dobson told WW.

Avakian is not ready for Congress, and we have our doubts he ever will be.

Brad
Witt, 59, is a four-term member of the House from Clatskanie who makes
his living negotiating contracts for the United Food and Commercial
Workers union. As a young man, Witt worked in sawmills in his native
Massachusetts and Oregon but later moved into management positions in
various unions, most notably as the No. 2 man at the statewide AFL-CIO
for 14 years.

Witt’s
failure to gain that union’s endorsement in this race (after a
hard-fought process, the AFL-CIO endorsed nobody) illustrates his
problems as a candidate and potential congressman.

He’s bright and
considered honest by his peers. But after four terms in the House, he’s
remained a back-bencher who hasn’t demonstrated the energy or skills to
play in the political big leagues. His mediocre record in the House
contrasts sharply with that of more junior members, who have eclipsed
him both in leadership positions and committee assignments.

His caucus depends
enormously on labor support, which should put Witt in a position of
influence. But he’s not in one. The best Witt could muster in the 2011
session was the chairmanship of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, known
in Salem as a panel of little significance.

The two Brads haven’t
demonstrated the qualifications or skill to represent Oregon’s 1st
District in Congress when compared to our choice, Suzanne Bonamici.

Bonamici, 57, grew up
in Michigan and went to the University of Oregon, where she earned her
law degree. She worked in consumer protection for the Federal Trade
Commission in the mid-1980s, and then practiced law for a few years in
Portland after she and her husband, current U.S. District Judge Michael
Simon, moved back to Oregon in 1986.